PHP Hosting Costs
I mentioned a while back that I was working on a website for a neighbour. Progress has been slow, as it is with most stuff I do in my "spare" time, but we're getting there. It's at the point where we need to get it online. This is where I'm in new ground as it involves domain transfers.
Originally he had a guy working on it who registered the domain and bought a basic hosting package with EasySpace - a company I had never used before. Not wanting to over complicate things I thought I'd stay with them and upgrade to a PHP/MySQL package. Until I saw the prices that was! To include MySQL is £24/year. To include MySQL requires you have the PHP package, which is £36/year. To include PHP requires the full web package, which is £60/year. Which all adds up to an extra £120 for a year.
Instead of sticking with the current hosts I convinced him to switch to the company I've always used, Easily.co.uk, who are cheaper. I'm familiar with their setup and know everything will work on their systems. It also means I get to learn how to swap hosts. Not something I've ever had to do before.
First thing I did was buy a hosting package with Easily at £40/year. Then I asked them to transfer the domain to their name server, which cost £10, as they renew it for another 2 years. Then the important part. You have to ask the current hosts to change the IPS Tag for the domain (in this case to "WEBCONSULTANCY", which is the unique tag for Easily). You'd think this would be free, but EasySpace charge £30 to do this!
So, all in all, the move to another host for the cheaper package wasn't that cheap after all. Should be worth it in the long run and I got to understand a little more about the inner workings of the web.
I know what you're thinking! Why don't I host my own servers? More on that tomorrow...
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I've used Supanames.co.uk for my Mambo sites and they have been very helpful. About £90 a year for everything. To use a domain name from elsewhere they just get you to alter the DNS servers on the existing domain name hosting rather than transfer, so no money to pay and less time to wait than transferring the tag thing. I haven't tried any other PHP/MySQL hosts in the UK, but I have managed to get a number of PHP systems working - best so far seem to be Mambo and E107 of the CMS's. Egroupware and dotProject are worth a look too.
So far I quite like {Link} very cheap USD 5 p/m for 1Gb. Very configurable also. Includes mysql etc. Only past three months been offline twice. Should be less.
whats an IPS tag? Sounds like some lame excuse to charge more money - and in this particular case, in an attempt to stop you jumping ship!
Here in NZ there is nothing that can't be changed by the domain owner - if you want to move to a new ISP, all it typically involves is getting them to configure their DNS correctly and away you go.
Of course, its always easier to setup a new domain than move a live one! There is always a certain amount of finger crossing with a move.
Once we got our ISP (one of the biggest telcos in the world) to move a MX record for us - unfortunately at 6pm on the Friday of the move, they transposed a digit - so for an entire weekend we had mail going to an address that didn't exist. I always love how "sorry" so easily flows off the big companies lips!
I think I should triple my rates. It seems that UK ist still Hosters paradise.
In a nutshell, the best deal on domain names, hosting, and even certificates is godaddy.com.
And if need be, dynamic DNS (and SMTP email failover support, in case your [possibly home] server goes down, use zoneedit.com) All the services described cost me well under $20 a year per domain. Except the certificate adds another ~$25.
Domain name = $8 year
Dynamic DNS = free
Email backup = ~ $9 a year
Cheers! (Although when I read the headline, I didn't think it was a machine you were adding to the household!) Cheers regardless!
Hi!
I' just want you to know that for our family site we're using Dreamhost.com. The company is based in the US, but the service is unbelievable and the prices fair (dreamhost.com/shared/comparison.html).
The only "thing" is that their product names are completely bonkers.
Check it out. In any event, I wish you success with your project.